All the Simple Things
by Salty Peanuts
Summary: Chun-Yan, a young, free-spirited, pretty bachelorette, had only ever been with complete idiots. She was just about to give up on the dating scene before she meets Ivan. Will he be able to tame her fire, or get burned like everyone else? Rofem!Chu. Fluff.


This is written as an art trade with Kadi, or gorillazgirl1 on Tumblr. She wanted heterochu fluff, and she'll get heterochu fluff. xD

Please enjoy!

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"Chun, you're getting old now, and it's time for you to find a nice boy to settle down with! I want to see my grandchildren before I die."

"Yeah, whatever mom." Chun-Yan mumbled under her breath, and left the pointless conversation at its pointless end.

As always, she shrugged off her mother's words and went about her happy business for the rest of the week, which included eating, sleeping, and playing World of Warcraft for the most part.

A month later, Chun went to her parent's house again for a follow-up, expecting her mother to be pretty irritated by the fact that after thirty days, her pretty, precious daughter was still single. But to Chun's surprise, her mother welcomed her with a warm smile that soon became too wide for her face, and quickly ushered her into their cold, damp prison of a home.

Sitting on the couch there was a guy, a human of the male gender, who Chun's never met before. That made her frown a little, as her mind naturally began piecing together what this entailed.

He was Chinese too, wore thick glasses shaped like goggles, and had shoulder-length greasy hair tied in a ponytail. The guy was slouching and tapping his feet, and the second Chun-Yan set eyes on him, his spine shot up immediately.

She groaned on the inside. _Really?_ Out of all the men in the world, this was her mother's choice of specimen? She'd _got _to be kidding.

"Chun-Yan, remember Yao? He's Uncle Wang's son, and you guys played as children!"

"Um... no." She must have been young, very young.

From the corner of her eye, Chun swore she caught Yao picking his nose when her mother wasn't looking.

"Well, he's a medical student, just finishing his third year at MIT," Her mother said proudly and clapped her hands together, "He just came down here to visit with his parents, isn't that nice?"

Chun looked at Yao, cringed a little, and said, "Yeah..."

And who was she? A dropout whose only ambition right now was to do next week's laundry.

She did agree to go on a date with him though. It was a lot less awkward than having dinner with both of their families, or that was what she thought at first. After much deliberation, she decided to take them to an amusement park, which ended up being a complete nightmare.

Sure, Yao was pretty good-looking if you squinted hard enough. Handsome, classical Asian features. Chun-Yan tried to keep an open mind, but the second he opened his mouth, all the hopes of Yao ever becoming an acquired taste was driven off a cliff.

"Hey Yao, want to go on a ride together? Looks pretty fun."

He shook his head disapprovingly. "Too expensive, too dangerous." He almost-scolded her, "Let's take a walk instead. At least it wouldn't give me a heart attack."

Since Chun decided it was was only strike number one, she chose to swallow her pride for the time being.

As they were strolling down the sidewalk, this was Yao's idea of breaking the silence—

"_You really need to go back to school, Chun-Yan, and find a job. You shouldn't be wasting your life like this. It's about time you started thinking about your future and your family!"_

"..."

Strike two.

At that moment, the only thing keeping Chun from stuffing her fist into his face was a growling, empty tummy. So instead of losing her cool, she turned around and headed straight to the food court.

"_Did you know that French fries are one of the worst things to eat when you're starving? This is due to its high fat content, and how lipids take much longer to digest than proteins and carbohydrates. Therefore, because your stomach lining is already experiencing__—__"_

Splat.

Yao hopped from his seat and shrieked like a prepubescent girl, as his head was doused with Chun-Yan's can of diet coke. He got a few turned heads and worried looks while trying to get the fizz out of his hair, not that Chun cared. She was already strutting away from the crime scene with a hand on her hip.

So from that day on, Chun-Yan vowed to never let her mother set her up with anyone again, nor would she ever agree to go on a date with someone who reminded her of her freaking _father_, which was just plain creepy.

So after she recovered from being scarred for life, Chun decided to go for someone completely different.

The next one was a friend of a friend, Ivan Braginsky. He was tall, wide, and liked to carry a lead pipe everywhere he went. He always wore clean-cut grin on his face, though his criminal record wasn't exactly clean, or so she heard.

Don't ask how Chun-Yan managed to strike up a conversation with him in the first place without, well you know, _dying, _and how she got to go on a date with him was nothing short of a miracle.

When Chun-Yan first laid eyes on Ivan, she knew he was the one. She was old enough now, and had been around the block enough times to know precisely what she wanted in a guy. Ones with normal nine-to-five jobs were boring, and thanks to her last wonderful experience, the hopes of her ever marrying a rich doctor laid tragically bleak. No, she wanted to take on a different kind of challenge. Chun was tired of being treated like a lady, as someone to be cuckolded and protected. She wanted a rougher, more dangerous life instead. Not everything fun was legal, after all.

Chun long dreamed of descending into the underbelly of society, where there's no rule of law telling her what kind of silly hats to wear. Greasy ceiling fans, loud, guttural voices, choking smoke. She wanted to spend her nights running away from police sirens, or riding cowboys until the sun rose.

She'd squeal in delight whenever thinking about all the things she and Ivan would do together... Oh, they'd have so much fun! Ivan could use everything in his toy chest on her... Chains, whips, and the like, and all she'd do is hold onto him and giggle.

* * *

The couple were on their seventh date now. They were in the Starbucks on Main Street, and Ivan Braginsky was sitting across the table, on a chair from which his large form seemed to be barely dangling.

In his hand was a small silver spoon, which Ivan was using to stir his steaming mocha latte instead of snapping it in half in a fit of rage. His usual beige trench coat hung from the chair, and he was wearing, as horrifying as it was, a navy blue polo shirt with the collar done up high.

Out of all of the colourful choices he could have made, Ivan decided to take them to a coffee shop today.

They had been dating for a month now, and Ivan still hadn't made a move on her. What was worse was that they'd only ever go out for coffee, or to see a movie together, and Chun was really starting to think that something was wrong, that she got screwed over dating Ivan. She certainly expected more from someone who was rumoured to be a hitman for the Russian mafia, and had seen his share of blood and guts.

To make things worse, Chun-Yan couldn't even tell what he's thinking right now, because half of his face was buried in the fluffy pink scarf around his neck.

"Nice scarf," she snickered, breaking the ten-minutes-long awkward silence between them.

"T-Thanks, I guess," Ivan said shyly, blushing at the compliment, "Um, want me to knit you one?"

Chun-Yan was really losing hope for this guy.

A while later, he asked, "So, how are your parents doing?"

"Uh, pretty good, I guess."

"...Oh."

She rolled her eyes. _Why does he care?_

Silence had fallen once more. Ivan started tapping his fingers on the table. Meanwhile, Chun-Yan was admiring the colour of the wallpaper, a deep forest green. Oh look, the brunet guy standing at the line had a really nice ass.

"So, what have you been up to recently?" She asked, as a last attempt for conversation before calling it a day.

"Well," he scratched his head, "I've been trying to graduate high school, but my grades aren't high enough yet... Math is so hard, I don't even know how people do so well at it..."

Chun didn't respond, but grabbed an issue of People's from the basket nearby, flipped it open, and pretended to be bored.

Ivan gulped grimly. He continued his tale, but his voice and confidence were beginning to crack a little, "Um, n-now I have to retake a bunch of classes to make up for all of the courses I failed, and—"

"But that doesn't give you an excuse to not call me at night!" She cut in, glaring.

"Well I had to work!" He protested.

Chun-Yan could see the tiniest beads sweat dripping from the side of his face, and she grinned inwardly.

"But you can still take me to the bar with your friends, and sell your drugs there!" Chun said further, pursing her cherry-red lips in displeasure, "What, scared that I'll embarrass you? Think that a girl can't drink?"

_There we go Ivan, now we're getting somewhere,_ She thought. Maybe she was being a bit of a bitch to him. But Chun-Yan was just so annoyed that _all_ the guys she'd ever met would put on a good, marketable facade in front of her, thinking that she'd be impressed by it. It seemed harder and harder to ask for some excitement in this day and age, when everyone in society had been brainwashed to be as boring as the colour grey.

"It's because I don't want you to get hurt..." Ivan could barely mumble back, his head drooping like a dying sunflower.

"Well, who says I will get hurt?!" She snapped, making Ivan flinch, "You men are all the same, just assuming they know what a lady wants without taking the time to know her better!"

To be honest, it was Chun-Yan's guilty pleasure seeing big, strong men like this. It gave her a certain sense of power, and she loved it.

Ivan, on the other hand, couldn't help but wonder if all women were this scary when angered. This was certainly true for _her_, and pretty much all the ones he'd dated before. Ivan supposed it's okay to have a bit of a temper, especially when Chun's that pretty. She was probably treated like a little kitten back home...

Chun growled under her breath, stood up, and pretended to leave, expecting Ivan to pull her back, which he did.

"Don't go," he beckoned, his hand resting gently on her arm, "Look Chun, the truth is that... Well, I really like you... And I hope we can be together for a long time."

"R-Really?" She asked, sitting back down. Chun wasn't sure she had heard him correctly.

"Well yeah," Ivan said weakly, and shrugged, "You're the first girl I've met who's willing to stay in the same room with me for more than a few minutes... The other ones... Hehe... Let's just not talk about them, da?"

Chun chuckled nervously, not because of his last weird comment, but because no one had ever did what Ivan had done— looked her in the eyes, held her hands, and openly poured his heart out to her.

"I don't know what I just did wrong, but I'll make it up to you, I swear. Ever since I met you, I _knew_ you were not like the other girls, that you could actually put up with someone like me... I don't have much to offer you, but I'll try my best as long as you're willing to give me a chance. So, will you?"

Chun honestly had no idea what to say back. She'd never had this kind of feeling in her heart before... Oh God, was she blushing? How dare he make her blush! That bastard!

Well, the only thing Chun-Yan could say was, "I guess," and hoped her molten-red face wasn't _that_ visible.

Ivan smiled. He carefully slipped off the pair of black knuckle gloves he had on, set them aside, and put his bare hands over hers. Chun-Yan felt her wrists twitch under his chilly fingertips.

Ivan leaned over, and kissed her on the cheek. It wasn't the kind of kiss that preluded him fucking her senseless against the bathroom wall, but the kind that made her toes curl, and her stomach flutter.

In the end, Chun-Yan supposed she could give this kind of relationship a try. It's a cold unforgiving world out there, and everyone looked after themselves. So, she supposed the most important thing was finding that special someone who truly loved and cared for her, instead of having her head up in the clouds all the time, and scaring men away with her high expectations.

Maybe, just maybe, it was the simple things that mattered.

**Fin.**

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Writing this sweet one-shot gave me a toothache. ;) So what do you think? **Please review!**


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